WALLABY ANNOUNCES IMPROVED PORTABLE COMPUTER
SUNNYVALE, CA - Wallaby, Inc., creators of the first all-in-one portable computer, announced today an improved and more powerful version of its Joey computer, introduced just one year ago. Wallaby's founder, the young and mercurial Peter Jones, was the inventor of the company's first computer, the Mate, nine years ago and was the driving force behind both the Joey and the enhanced version unveiled today, the Joey Plus. The new version is easier to program, offers a faster processor, and boasts more built-in memory configuration for running more powerful software programs, which are now becoming available. It also features a slim, built-in CD-ROM drive for accessing multimedia titles and reference works, a faster 14.4K data/fax modem, and a brighter backlit active-matrix display, all for the same price as the original Joey, which the new model replaces.
Analysts view the introduction of the Joey Plus as a feather in the cap of Wallaby Chairman and CEO Matthew Locke, who took the company reins from Jones after a boardroom showdown three months ago.
"This demonstrates Locke's ability to manage a new products company," said Michael Kolohan of Quest Market Research, Inc.
"We're very excited about the Joey Plus computer," Locke said in a telephone interview. "Now there are no hurdles between developers and users in offering powerful applications that compare to those available for ICP computer users, our value-added being the easier to use design of the Joey Plus, and its more attractive, more convenient form factor."
In his new role as leader of Wallaby, Locke reorganized the formerly separate engineering groups, consolidating resources on the Joey Plus project, which accelerated the device's introduction to market by three months. To enlist the support of software developers, Locke took to the road, evangelizing with prototypes of the powerful new Joey Plus to stimulate new software development prior to today's announcement.
One developer, PowerBase, Inc. of Cupertino, California, will soon introduce an program for compound document and forms processing, and advanced communications abilities. Said Paul Kupiec, president of PowerBase, "Wallaby really delivered with the new Joey Plus. We're ecstatic, now that it's got so much room for bigger applications, which means corporate clients we could not previously appeal to are now more apt to consider Wallaby over ICP.
"We were all worried when Jones left the company," Kupiec continued, "but Locke came to our offices in person with his engineering managers and offered us an early prototype unit of the new Plus. We dropped everything and already have ninety-eight percent of our program completed, which we ported from our ICP BP version. I think he [Locke] may fare well in his new role."
Jones, on sabbatical in New England, was offered a "visionary at large" role after being ousted by Locke and the company's board of directors, according to one source. However, Wallaby officials declined to comment on Jones's plans for returning in his new non-management role. "Matthew Locke hopes that Peter will return to Wallaby soon," said Wallaby spokesperson Laurence Maupin. "We all miss him and look forward to having him back at work soon."
Jones could not be reached for comment.
- - - - - - - - - -
Peter folded the newspaper and sipped his orange juice. The sun was hot and the air smelled fresh and clean. All around him, people in summer dress clothes walked leisurely about the village, and the news of Silicon Valley felt very, very far away. He closed his eyes…and a moment later he sensed a shadow blocking the direct sunlight.
"Think you'll go back?" asked the elderly man standing before him. Beneath his arm was a folded copy of the "Journal."
Peter eyed the stranger. "I don't know."
The man placed his large, tanned and weathered hand on the back of the vacant chair beside Peter. "Okay if I join you?"
"Sure," Peter said, leaning back in his own chair.
The man removed his cap and signaled the waitress. He fixed his gaze on Peter for an instant. "Congratulations on the new product," he said with a wink. He unfolded his own newspaper and laid it over Peter's copy. "Your whiskers threw me for a second or two, but I used to slack off now and then on the shave - though not because I was masquerading."
"It wasn't my product introduction," Peter said, stroking his light beard unconsciously.
The man pulled a pen from his pocket, then lifted his thumb and winked one eye shut like an artist gauging his subject. "Hold still. I want to get this right." He proceeded to draw a mustache and beard on Peter's picture in the newspaper.
Peter was beginning to feel amused.
"Well," said the old man, taking up their conversation without looking up from his artwork, "you weren't there for the show, but it is your product just the same. Good work, son."
"Thanks."
The waitress arrived. His portrait completed, the man shoved the paper across the table for the waitress to see. "What do you think? Look like him?"
She looked at the photo and smiled politely, unaware that it was really Peter in person and in the newspaper. "A mineral water?" she said.
"Thank you, my dear. Anything for you, Mr. Jones?"
"No thanks."
The man closed his eyes and turned his smiling face into the sun. As Peter studied him, he felt a dim glow of recognition. Had he met him before, perhaps seen a photo of him somewhere? There was something about the cynicism in the man's eye. No doubt he was a former businessman well into his retirement, for with his eyes closed, he looked maybe seventy-five.
"Here you are, Mr. Holmes," the waitress said.
With his eyes open, however, the man suddenly looked ten years younger. Pouring the mineral water over the ice cubes in the glass, he fixed his gaze on Peter. "It isn't easy walking away from something you've given birth to, is it?" He squeezed some juice from the lime slice floating in the glass.
"No. It sure isn't," Peter said. Except for Kate's weekend trips away from Los Angeles, Peter had been completely alone for the past three months in Maine. During this period he had spoken with hardly anyone, except when necessary - ordering food in restaurants, paying for goods at the general store, or collecting his bundles of forwarded mail at the post office. He had forgotten how good it could feel to talk to someone, even a stranger. Especially a stranger. But Peter sensed that this wasn't just any stranger.
"Yep. Same thing happened to me. Gave them fifty years. Started when I was twenty, not that different from you. Yes sir, I remember how it felt."
"How?"
"Like someone ripped my heart out and chopped a chunk off it." For a few moments the man's gaze turned introspective as he poked at the lime in his drink. "Sound about right?" His lively blue eyes revealed sympathy, understanding.
This man knows, Peter thought. He managed a small smile and a nod.
"Son, you're a bright boy. I know all about you. How old can you be, thirty?"
"Thirty-two."
"Hell," the man said with a guffaw, "when I was that age I'd just got going."
Crossing his arms over his chest, Peter considered the man with curiosity and puzzlement. What had the waitress called him?
"Yes sir. That's how old I was when I invented a new system design that went on to become our standard for the next many, many years." He took another sip from his glass. "Still is," he said, jutting his lower lip out proudly.
"What design was that?" Peter asked. But before the man answered, Peter deduced that there was only one computer standard that had been in existence that long, and that was -
"The 990."
Peter tossed his head back, and for the first time in months he let go a huge, cleansing laugh. Of course! Byron Holmes, inventor of ICP's 990 series, which had become, and still formed the foundation of, the architecture upon which all of ICP's mainframe computers were built. Byron Holmes, son of Jonathan Holmes, founder of ICP.
"What's so damn funny?"
Peter touched the man's arm in apology. "I was just thinking how funny it is for us to meet. Go on, please. What did you do after the 990?"
"Revise, revise, revise."
"Things moved more slowly back then, didn't they?"
"Back then? You make it sound like I figured out how to add three wheels to one, so that families could take kids to the dinosaur races."
Peter could see that the man was enjoying this as much as he was.
He became wholly attentive and invigorated.
"You kids from the Valley think your teensy computers are going to replace our Goliath machines someday, don't you?"
"I wouldn't know anymore. I'm out of the business."
"Poppyshit!" Holmes said, rapping his hand down on the table. "Don't give me that sour-faced hurt-boy story. Doesn't fly with me."
"I made that company what it is," Peter said, instantly somber.
"And then it was taken away from me."
"That's craziness," Byron said, moving his chair closer. "Boy, I'll tell you something. After I made the 990 what it is, they moved me into big management. Sure, it was my dad's company. But I had the right education for it, so I could have done it anyway if my heart had been in it. But it wasn't. All I wanted to do was make those big, beautiful machines. After a short while I stepped down, moved in another fella, a guy that managed the schedule and all that stuff. Kept our friendship golden after all these years. Now he's the big cheese there.
"I stuck around for a long time. I was vice chairman, and spent years evolving the 990 design into what it is now, which'll probably see them through to the year 2000. As I was nearing the age everyone says is the time to leave, I had a heart attack. Guess I thought I was still a youngster. I retired, and me and my wife have been enjoying ourselves and playing around like kids ever since. Not bad for seventy-four years young, eh?"
"But it's not the same. I could have run the company. With all due respect, you inherited yours. I started mine from scratch. They just didn't give me a chance," Peter said.
The older man discounted the younger with a wave of his arm.
"Nah. You'll come around eventually. Can't have both, you know."
"I could."
The older man's tone turned serious. "That's just pure, one-hundred percent poppyshit, is all." He pointed his finger at Peter with rigid authority. "You need to squeegee all that anger out of your system so you can get back out there and do something. Again."
Just then a handsome smiling woman appeared at the table, dressed in a light, summery outfit. In one hand she held her wide-brimmed hat, in the other a bag of vegetables and groceries. Byron's face brightened at her arrival.
"Is this man filling your ear with World War II stories?" She handed the bag to Byron.
"I haven't even gotten to those yet," Byron said as he stood.
"Another day."
He made introductions. "Gracie, this boy is the one who invented all those pesky little computers littering everyone's desks out there," Byron said. "He's also been the best conversation I've had here in awhile. Mr. Jones, it's been nice talking to you."
"Likewise," said Peter. The two men shook hands.
"Why don't you come by our house for dinner. Saturday night."
Byron said, tapping his shirt pocket for his pen.
"Thank you, that's very kind. But I've been sticking pretty much to myself, and I'm not much company - "
"Nonsense! Eight o'clock," Byron said, scribbling his address on a paper napkin.
"All right then, I'll be there. But I have a friend coming. Would it be okay if I brought her?"
"Can she dance?"
"No, but she can sing."
"Of course," Grace said. "Please bring her along." The couple said good-bye and then strolled off holding hands.
With some amusement, Peter settled into his chair and thought about the irony of meeting Byron Holmes here. It wasn't all that unusual, since Camden was where so many men like Byron spent their summers. Yet, of all the people in the world, he'd never guessed he'd shake hands with the man whose surname was synonymous with the world's first tabulating machines. Small world, Peter thought. No, he corrected himself, I'm from the small world, and he's from the big world. But, as he'd just learned, it didn't seem to matter how big or small your baby. When it's yours, it's yours. And this man understood that.
* * *
The horses walked side by side, each carrying a rider through the secluded wooded path.
"I don't believe you, that the only love you have ever felt has been for horses. Nonsense," Greta said.
"It is true," said Jean-Pierre, crossing his heart with his finger.
"Ridiculous."
"Greta, I tell no lie when I say that I have been in love only with horses. Nothing has ever come between us," he said, patting his beast's neck affectionately.
"Frenchmen," she said with a dismissing wave of her gloved hand. "Such talkers." Had he noticed? She took a breath, reminding herself to keep her left hand on the saddle.
And, she wondered, had he noticed her color when he'd crossed his heart? Unless he was psychic, she knew that he could not see what was going on inside her when he spoke of things such as his country and horses.
"Your husband, he is doing something very important today, no?"
"Yes. It's important. To him. Some new computer."
"Indeed. I read about it in the paper. You must be very proud,
Greta. Yes?"
"Yes, of course. He's done very well since he's been in control. Very busy," she said. She wished this topic to go no further. She let herself look at him, into his eyes.
"Yes," Jean-Pierre replied with a nod that said, without words, that he understood. It was the same look he had given her when they'd first met after they had shaken hands, when his arm had been in a sling.
They continued along in silence at a trot, and Greta renewed their conversation with enthusiasm. "Jean-Pierre, tell me more about your country. Is the French countryside similar to Northern California, as everyone here seems to think?"
"Ah, it is beautiful," Jean-Pierre said. "All year is green out in the countryside where I was born. And clean when you inhale, and pretty, all fresh and tingling in your nose, in your heart. You ride on and on and see no one for very long stretches of time. Here and there, children are playing or doing chores, you see a woman carrying a basket, a man with an ax. They wave when they see you." Smiling, he waved to her as if to illustrate, but all at once his expression changed into a grimace, as though he were suddenly in great pain.
"What is it?" Greta asked.
"This damned shoulder. If I cannot even lift it to wave, how will
I ever hold a mallet again?"
"Isn't there anything you can do about it?"
"Oh, sure. There are procedures. Surgery."
"Then why don't you get it fixed?"
"It is complicated."
"Yes, but it's worth a try, isn't it? Wouldn't it be better to try to save it, so you could play again, rather than give up your livelihood?"
"It's not that simple."
"Why? People get things like that fixed all the time, don't they?
You're a champion. How can you just stop playing?"
"That's not what I mean. I don't want it to be like this."
She persisted. "I still don't understand. What's so complicated about your case?"
Abruptly he reined his horse to a halt and she brought her horse around. He was looking off into the hills. For all of his broadness and strength, his maleness, she saw that she had unknowingly struck a sensitive chord in him. "Jean-Pierre," she said, trying to catch his eye, "I didn't mean to upset you. If I have, I'm sorry."
"No. That's not it. You see," he said with a faint smile, "I am an independent."
"I'm sorry, really. You don't have to go on if you don't want to."
"But I do. I do want to go on. Right now, in Deauville, where I have lived most of my life as a polo player, the tournament is underway. Eight teams converge to compete for fifteen cups. The most coveted is the Coupe d'Or. There is money as well. I, of course, was on the French team. I had a sponsor for the tournament, but because of this damned thing, I had to drop out."
"But if you get it taken care of, can't you play again, and make next year's competition?"
"That is the problem, getting it taken care of. It costs money. And because I am an independent and I had to drop out, I lost my sponsorship. What I am saying, Greta, is that I cannot afford the surgery and therapy. That is why I agreed to come here as a consultant to look into developing a polo club. I need the money."
"Jean-Pierre," Greta said, "I understand how you feel." She felt compelled to tell him about her own suffering. However, glancing down at her gloved left hand, she couldn't bring herself to go on. Hers was no common ailment. Granted, he was suffering, losing the use of his shoulder, but her loss, she could not help feeling, was greater. It was not the same. It was worse. And, she feared, it might repulse him, and end the acquaintance they had begun.
They continued along the trails leading back to the stable, back from her escape.
For the past three months she had gone riding every couple of days with Jean-Pierre. It had started with his insisting that she try some jumping, but she dashed that idea at once. However, she did agree to go riding with him once, and had continued ever since. The early mornings frequently found her on these paths with Jean-Pierre, before he began his day. In addition to his polo club project, he trained a number of students. With each day they spent together, riding along the lush trails, she acquired more knowledge of horses and Europe, and of things she had never imagined before - most of all attraction, for the first time since her marriage to Matthew, for another man. While she knew he was here to research the potential for a polo club, he was not specific about the details of his private life. Whenever she pressed him for more information, he turned the conversation back to her, or went into one story or another that was full of adventure and intrigue. He told her that, like most polo players, he was a thrill-seeker; his attitude was that all of life was a game, one big gamble, there for the playing. When she asked him how long he thought he would stay, he told her he was not really sure. All she wanted, she reminded herself continually, was to be able to keep spending a precious hour or two with him each day riding. But lately, when she left him after their ride, she had begun to allow herself a little more; she had now and then found herself thinking about him during her midmorning bath, or just staring out the bedroom window, across the treetops and off into the near distance, at the ranch's gable rooftop. And sometimes, after a morning ride, she would awaken on her bed, not remembering having lain down, his face the first image to appear to her, her mind studying and touching him before opening her eyes and getting on with the day. Although she relished these moments in his company, she could hardly wait to be away from him today, to be alone with him in her secret way.
"I have thought how good it would be to go back to France after my project is through here, taking my meager savings, and my meager arm, and finding a small ranch in the country."
She tightened her grip on the reins. "Well, if you want it badly enough, you'll find a way to get back into the game."
"Yes, maybe. But for now I am a slave to this project. It's paying the bills, as Americans are fond to say."
With mild dread, she knew he would be gone sooner than she wanted to admit. Of course it would be better if he were gone, she told herself. She was married to a very successful man, and that meant security and stability.
Yet as if to discourage her rational thinking, a burst of enthusiasm whipped through her. "Let's race," she shouted, then pressed her heels into Mighty Boy's sides. Before Jean-Pierre could answer, her horse bolted forward.
"Cheater!" he hollered, and gained on her quickly. They rounded a turn in the path and flew past wild calla lily flowers, the tall stems batting their horses' legs. She looked over her shoulder, excited, and pressed Might Boy harder. Jean-Pierre narrowed the distance between them and his horse fell into a synchronized gallop with Mighty Boy. She laughed at him and saw that he was hiding something behind his back. He saw that she saw.
"Not until you slow," he said, reining his horse to a trot.
She obeyed, dropping beside him. He leaned from his saddle and handed her a single calla lily. She felt touched and overwhelmed, and closed her eyes for a moment, forgetting he was there riding right beside her. Then, suddenly aware of her obvious pleasure, she felt embarrassed. Carefully she tucked the flower between her leg and the saddle, then raced off for the final stretch, hoping the distance would allow her a moment to regain her composure.
He called after her, yet, when she turned once, she saw that he was letting the stretch widen between them, as if he had seen her flustered condition and had, once again, understood what she was feeling.
The soft black path turned dusty as she neared the barn. Her car was parked in the lot. Jennifer's truck, parked in front of her house, was the only other vehicle there.
She brought Mighty Boy to a halt before the stable entrance and wiped her brow with the sleeve of her chambray shirt. Carefully holding the flower, she lowered herself from the horse. Jean-Pierre had dismounted by the far ring and was walking toward the barn. Normally, the horses would be hosed down, to both clean and cool them, but the groom had not yet arrived, so they allowed some time for the horses to cool down a little in the chilly morning air.
"I'd better be going," Greta said after some time had passed, taking Might Boy's bridle in her hand.
In silence, they led the horses into the barn. The animal bodies were lathered with sweat, and the fine layer of dust that covered their muscles was beginning to dry and crinkle in the shadowed coolness. She reached behind her head and unclipped her barrette, allowing her hair to fall loosely over her shoulders. It was as if everything had changed as they walked through a near-dark silence, like day into night. Her senses sharpened, like those of a nocturnal creature. She knew he was looking at her, and she felt awkwardly exposed. She glanced quickly at him. His eyes gazed at her with peaceful, deliberate regard. She maintained her lead into the barn with Mighty Boy, then Jean-Pierre stopped at his own horse's stall, and she hastened her task at hand, in an attempt to be done and out of the stall before he had a chance to come to hers. But as she worked with Mighty Boy's halter, she felt his presence at the entrance of the stall. He pulled the double door shut behind him as he entered, closing them in together in nearly complete darkness.
Her insides tightened as he slowly approached, the very act of breathing becoming more difficult the closer he came. She blinked to adjust her vision, and busied herself with releasing the girth of Mighty Boy's saddle, but she was clearly having problems; she had not thought to simply put down the flower for a moment while she worked with the snaps. And, as always, there was her hand, which forever burdened even the simplest tasks.
He came to her rescue, and she froze at the touch of his large strong hands on hers. And before she had to even consider retracting her flawed hand, he moved her aside and set about unfastening the girth and removing the saddle, leaving her to just stand there and watch, holding the flower.
Time stopped. Even Mighty Boy was still. His stare was on her again, but she willed her gaze to remain fixed on the hay-strewn floor. If she looked up into his eyes, there was no telling what would happen. Yet she made no effort to alter what was happening. Instead she shut her eyes, and tried not to think about how much time was passing between them without words. What were his thoughts? Were they the same as her own? What were hers? She could not focus on any of these blind musings. Unaware of her own action she had raised her head, as though all of him would become clearer if she trained her closed lids in his direction. She opened her eyes. Nothing in her mind could prepare her for what she faced. The emerald intensity of his eyes pierced through her, instantly warming her neck, her nipples, her loins.
"Come," he said, motioning to her with one hand, the other flat against the horse's side. "Feel this."
She allowed him to lift her right hand and pull her closer. He made her feel the animal's hot, damp flank, flattening his own hard hand over hers. She focused on his dusty manicured nails, his long fingers, weathered knuckles, and tanned skin. This was the hand she had fantasized about, touching her as it was now, and more.
"The strength of this animal, it can all be felt through his heartbeat. So strong," he whispered. She felt his breath on her forehead, and inhaled to try to bring it inside of her.
Mighty Boy stood steady as she experienced the bold breathing and strong heartbeat drumming beneath her hand. "Yes," she managed, barely, willing her hand to stop trembling beneath his.
He slowly lifted her hand from the horse and turned her so that they were facing each other. The flower fell from her free hand. He removed the glove from the hand he was holding, then he reached for her other hand.
"No," she said, a little panicked. "Not that one."
He nodded to let her know that he understood, then guided the ungloved hand beneath his shirt. He pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart. "It is no different," he said. Then she had the other, gloved hand in his shirt. She felt his insistent heartbeat, so powerful in its pounding, the pulse of his life beneath her hands. She raked her fingers over his muscles. The wild scent of horses mingled sharply with his spiciness. She closed her eyes and took a deep, heady breath, and experienced a wave of pleasant dizziness.
He gripped her wrists and pressed her against Mighty Boy, touched his lips to her ear. "Perhaps this attraction I feel for you is the first to come between me and my love for horses," he said with a little laugh.
She shifted her head back. A bead of sweat jiggled on his chin, beside a tiny flake of hay. She dabbed the droplet with the back of her bare hand, touched the hay flake away and pulled it past his lips, yet did not let herself touch them. He took her hand from his cheek, then curled her fingers into his own. He inhaled the fragrance on her wrist, kissed it.
She began trembling as he lowered his arm around her waist and pressed her harder into Mighty Boy, layering her between the heat of two powerful bodies. She pulled her fingers free of his grip and plunged her hands into his long hair and down his neck, across the hard muscles of his shoulders.
Then, just as their lips drew near, Greta reeled her head away with a shake, as if snapping awake from frightening dream - he had taken her gloved hand in his own.
"No," she said, struggling.
He tightened his hold on her. "What are you hiding, Greta? What is it you are so afraid to show me?" Then suddenly, Matthew's image appeared in her mind's eye.
An agonized moan escaped her, and she let out a small, frustrated cry. She had to leave, at once. "I can't," she said, bringing her lips closer to his. "Do you hear me, I can't."
Or could she? Could she just once, to have him completely in her memory forever? Yes, just this one time. Quickly, she thought, before Matthew returns and makes it impossible for her to go any further.
Lips parting ardently, she hungrily drew in his breath as their mouths joined.